IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY

Darwin was not without his critics. In his book, Darwinism: The Refutation
of a Myth, Soren Lovtrup points out that "some critics turned against
Darwin's teachings for religious reasons, but they were a minority; most
of his opponents ... argued on a completely scientific basis." He
goes on to explain:

"...the reasons for rejecting Darwin's proposal were many, but first
of all that many innovations cannot possibly come into existence through
accumulation of many small steps, and even if they can, natural selection
cannot accomplish it, because incipient and intermediate stages are not
advantageous."

Perhaps the most formidable of Darwin's critics was St. George Mivart.
His major book, On the Genesis of Species, took aim at the notion that
natural selection could account for the accumulation of the incipient stages
of useful structures (Mivart, 1871). Stephen Jay Gould notes that

"Darwin offered strong, if grudging, praise and took Mivart far more
seriously than any other critic...Mivart gathered, and illustrated "with
admirable art and force" (Darwin's words), all objections to the theory
of natural selection---"a formidable array" (Darwin's words again).
Yet one particular theme, urged with special attention by Mivart, stood
out as the centerpiece of his criticism. It remains today the primary stumbling
block among thoughtful and friendly scrutinizers of Darwinism. No other
criticism seems so troubling, so obviously and evidently "right"
(against a Darwinian claim that seems intuitively paradoxical and improbable).

Mivart awarded this criticism a separate chapter in his book, right after
the introduction. He also gave it a name, remembered ever since. He called
it "The Incompetency of 'Natural Selection' to account for the Incipient
Stages of Useful Structures." If this phrase sounds like a mouthful,
consider the easy translation: we can readily understand how complex and
full developed structures work and owe their maintenance and preservation
to natural selection---a wing, an eye, the resemblance of a bittern to
a branch or of an insect to a stick or dead leaf. But how do you get from
nothing to such an elaborate something if evolution must proceed through
a long sequence of intermediate stages, each favored by natural selection?
You can't fly with 2% of a wing or gain much protection from an iota's
similarity with a potentially concealing piece of vegetation. How, in other
words, can natural selection explain these incipient stages of structures
that can only be used (as we now observe them) in much more elaborated
form?"

Gould goes on to point out that among the difficulties of Darwinian theory
"one point stands high above the rest: the dilemma of incipient stages.
Mivart identified this problem as primary and it remains so today."

Dr. Robert Macnab of Yale University concluded a major 50 page review
of the sensory and motor mechanism of the bacterium, E. coli, with
these remarks:

As a final comment, one can only marvel at the intricacy in a simple bacterium,
of the total motor and sensory system which has been the subject of this
review and remark that our concept of evolution by selective advantage
must surely be an oversimplification. What advantage could derive, for
example, from a "preflagellum" (meaning a subset of its components),
and yet what is the probability of "simultaneous" development
of the organelle at a level where it becomes advantageous (Macnab, 1978)?